Jan 21, 2021

NEEDING A NORTH STAR

One of my biggest challenges as a new teacher was figuring out what to prioritize. Given my huge to-do list, I fell into overwhelm and, as much as I hate to admit it, was often paralyzed into not taking any action, because I didn’t know which thread to pull first. I realized that I needed to take a bigger picture approach to set my priorities. I couldn’t base them on the granular, day-to-day responsibilities. To combat my overwhelm, I needed a big picture, values-based north star.

HOW TO CHOOSE A NORTH STAR

The issue was, which north star to pick? Was it connecting with my students? Creating relationships with colleagues? Communicating with parents? Pleasing my administrators? Jumping into leadership roles to make a place for myself at a district-level? Making sure my students left my classroom knowing what they needed to know?

My knee-jerk response was: ALL OF THE ABOVE, of course!

But that was a recipe for crazy-making – no matter how much experience you have, but especially for beginning teachers.

So, I took the opportunity to observe the extraordinary people I had the privilege to work with. There are two that I remember, who after watching, I knew had very different north stars.

A TALE OF TWO TEACHERS

Both these teachers were on the staff at a brand new middle school we helped open. They taught the same subject, at different grade levels. And by watching them, I discovered they each had two very different North Stars.

Teacher #1

The first taught at the 7th-grade level. His students came to us as 8th graders, as we were both assigned to the gifted and talented teams in our respective grade levels.

He was dynamic and engaging, and very active on the educational speaking circuit, as he had recently been awarded Teacher of the Year by a major U.S. entity. This meant that he was often out of the classroom to keynote different events.

He was known for the grand, sweeping activities he did with students, from marching down the halls with his classes to demonstrate adjectives and adverbs, to conducting classroom video conferencing with scientists and other professionals out in the field.

Pretty snazzy, right? And the administration – both at our campus and at the district level – ate it up.

Teacher #2

The second teacher was his counterpart on my 8th-grade team. I had a front-row seat as I observed him get in the building early each morning, connect with as many kids as he could teach them the stuff he knew they needed to know – specifically, how to think for themselves – and get out at the end of the workday. He was a “why” guy – you know the one – the guy that challenges the different initiatives admins roll out, and refuses to jump into anything unless he can see how it correlates to what he’s doing in his classroom, for his students.

Two Different North Stars

Their North Stars were different. The first’s was to impress the administration and build his career on the speaking circuit. The second was to make sure his students learned everything they needed to know before they left his class. They had very different end goals in mind.

YOU CAN DO IT ALL – BUT NOT AT THE SAME TIME

The truth is, as a master teacher, you DO want to hit on most, if not all, of these – connecting with my students, creating relationships with colleagues, communicating with parents, pleasing my administrators, jumping into leadership roles, and making sure students leave the classroom knowing what they needed to know.

The trick is understanding that you can’t do it all at one time.

DISCOVERING YOUR NORTH STAR

So, for beginning teachers, here is what I would say: list out all your north stars and put them in a hierarchy.

That’s the first step in setting up boundaries for what you prioritize.

To figure out how to rank your list, I recommend using the question that Gary Keller proposes in his book, The One Thing, but with a twist. Ask yourself, “which is the most important, that by mastering, will make everything else easier or unnecessary?” Once you have the first thing, then go through the rest of the list, asking yourself the same question.

I would argue that in that list – Connecting with my students, creating relationships with colleagues, communicating with parents, pleasing my administrators, jumping into leadership roles, and making sure students leave the classroom knowing what they needed to know – the thing that would make everything else easier or unnecessary is: Making sure my students leave my classroom knowing what they need to know.

WITH A NORTH STAR, EVERYTHING ELSE FALLS INTO PLACE

If you make that your first priority, everything else is going to fall into place – you’ll connect with your students through the vehicle of your curriculum. The same goes for colleagues – by asking for advice and suggestions for best instructional practices, you’ll forge relationships. You’ll please your administrators because you’re doing your job. Leadership is (possibly) unnecessary at this point because you’re in a position to be a mentee rather than a mentor.

Once you’ve mastered that, you can reevaluate your list and move on to mastering the next thing.

POISED FOR THE MAIN THING

With student learning as your North Star, you’re poised to keep the main thing the main thing – which is what we’re going to talk about in the next episode.